Geeky World Tour - Prague
In Which Winter Comes to Prague, and Spring Follows
(I stopped writing these less than halfway through the trip, because, as it turns out, grad school projects and travel blogging don't mix. I'm going to try to get more done while the trip's still only a few months distant. As always, apologies for those who may be bored by these, but they're mostly for future-me's benefit.)
In the time that I've been dating Amy, I've discovered that we have very different reactions to snow. Though I'm the son of two New Yorkers, I grew up in Memphis, and to me, snow is a strange, exotic thing: fascinating to look at, but risky to be out in, and best appreciated from a cozy living room. Amy grew up in Wisconsin near one of the Great Lakes and views it as a dear old friend. Which is to say, that Amy was more excited to go see Prague Castle in the snow than I was. My primary goal for the day was not to slip and fall on my ass. :-)
Prague is a beautiful city, but Prague in the snow is lovelier still. Some of the best pictures of the trip came from that overcast morning. We took a light rail tram right up to the castle entrance, and walked to the castle gates, cameras out. Prague Castle isn't just one building, but an entire complex of palaces and churches.
We started with perhaps the most impressive: St. Vitus's Cathedral. It's a giant Gothic cathedral, which looks even bigger than it is because of the close quarters it's situated in. The stained glass windows, some of which are modern, were just stunning. From there we explored some of the palaces, which told the history of the Czech kings. I'd done my homework but still learned lots of details.
I must confess I geeked out when I saw the actual window that the Defenestration of Prague was, well, defenestrated out of. (Hussites--believers in a Czech form of Protestantism that predates Luther--threw several Catholic noblemen out of a window in Prague Castle. Czech Catholics said their survival was a miracle. Hussites claimed the Catholics' fall was broken by a manure pile. This sparked the 30 Years War, which until World War I, was the worst conflict in European history.)
One of the highlights for Amy was a row of soldier's quarters snuggled against the outer walls; each one was decorated according to a period of the castle's history. On the top floor of the quarters was a nice arms and armor collection, with a random torture chamber in a side room near the gift shop. (No one expects the Czech Inquisition?)
Sometime after lunch at a little sandwich shop on the grounds, the sun came out, and the snow had almost melted. Amy and I walked back around the complex, taking pictures of the cathedral weeping meltwater in the sunlight. From there, we went to the royal art gallery, which had a small collection of Old Masters (nothing really memorable -- the Hapsburgs moved most of the good stuff to Vienna and I saw it last year.) I thought we were done--but then Amy asked to go back to take a look at the toy museum we'd passed earlier at lunch.
At this point I discovered that my attention span at a toy museum is about 15-30 minutes, and that Amy's is infinite. Fairness requires me to admit that at art galleries it's the other way around. :-)
We left the castle near closing time, and a sort of eerie peace had settled on the place, which had been so crowded with tour groups that morning. Rather than take the tram back down, we walked down centuries-old steps to descend down the hill to the Malostranska subway station at the base. Dinner that night was at a Czech bistro near our hotel, so we could get one last taste of those amazing dumplings the Czechs seem to serve with everything.
We still had one more day of the trip together, but this was our last day touring Prague. We'd gotten nearly everything done we set out to do.
(I stopped writing these less than halfway through the trip, because, as it turns out, grad school projects and travel blogging don't mix. I'm going to try to get more done while the trip's still only a few months distant. As always, apologies for those who may be bored by these, but they're mostly for future-me's benefit.)
In the time that I've been dating Amy, I've discovered that we have very different reactions to snow. Though I'm the son of two New Yorkers, I grew up in Memphis, and to me, snow is a strange, exotic thing: fascinating to look at, but risky to be out in, and best appreciated from a cozy living room. Amy grew up in Wisconsin near one of the Great Lakes and views it as a dear old friend. Which is to say, that Amy was more excited to go see Prague Castle in the snow than I was. My primary goal for the day was not to slip and fall on my ass. :-)
Prague is a beautiful city, but Prague in the snow is lovelier still. Some of the best pictures of the trip came from that overcast morning. We took a light rail tram right up to the castle entrance, and walked to the castle gates, cameras out. Prague Castle isn't just one building, but an entire complex of palaces and churches.
We started with perhaps the most impressive: St. Vitus's Cathedral. It's a giant Gothic cathedral, which looks even bigger than it is because of the close quarters it's situated in. The stained glass windows, some of which are modern, were just stunning. From there we explored some of the palaces, which told the history of the Czech kings. I'd done my homework but still learned lots of details.
I must confess I geeked out when I saw the actual window that the Defenestration of Prague was, well, defenestrated out of. (Hussites--believers in a Czech form of Protestantism that predates Luther--threw several Catholic noblemen out of a window in Prague Castle. Czech Catholics said their survival was a miracle. Hussites claimed the Catholics' fall was broken by a manure pile. This sparked the 30 Years War, which until World War I, was the worst conflict in European history.)
One of the highlights for Amy was a row of soldier's quarters snuggled against the outer walls; each one was decorated according to a period of the castle's history. On the top floor of the quarters was a nice arms and armor collection, with a random torture chamber in a side room near the gift shop. (No one expects the Czech Inquisition?)
Sometime after lunch at a little sandwich shop on the grounds, the sun came out, and the snow had almost melted. Amy and I walked back around the complex, taking pictures of the cathedral weeping meltwater in the sunlight. From there, we went to the royal art gallery, which had a small collection of Old Masters (nothing really memorable -- the Hapsburgs moved most of the good stuff to Vienna and I saw it last year.) I thought we were done--but then Amy asked to go back to take a look at the toy museum we'd passed earlier at lunch.
At this point I discovered that my attention span at a toy museum is about 15-30 minutes, and that Amy's is infinite. Fairness requires me to admit that at art galleries it's the other way around. :-)
We left the castle near closing time, and a sort of eerie peace had settled on the place, which had been so crowded with tour groups that morning. Rather than take the tram back down, we walked down centuries-old steps to descend down the hill to the Malostranska subway station at the base. Dinner that night was at a Czech bistro near our hotel, so we could get one last taste of those amazing dumplings the Czechs seem to serve with everything.
We still had one more day of the trip together, but this was our last day touring Prague. We'd gotten nearly everything done we set out to do.